I can’t believe that it’s been three years since we moved from our 1,400 square foot home to 4,000 square feet. Buying a bigger house might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for our family of eight it felt like a necessity. We had just had baby number five and our three bedroom, two bath home was feeling a little cramped. Our home also had very little storage (other than a decent sized kitchen) and estimates to add-on weren’t justifiable. So we took the plunge and ended up buying a house almost three times bigger than our previous one. Here are our thoughts three years later!

buying a bigger house: buyer’s remorse?

While the rest of the world seemed to be downsizing the thought of buying a bigger house was a little scary. Especially in the overpriced California market. Sure, we needed a bigger house with more storage, but were we making a huge mistake? Every once in awhile Mike and I still look at each other and say, “if we hadn’t bought the house we could do this“. But honestly, we love our home! And even though it seemed so expensive at the time it ended up being a good buy for us and the value has climbed the past couple years. Plus, we love having a big enough home to host friends and family now.

We are constantly saying how much we love our house. We miss the community of our old neighborhood and church congregation but love the location of our new home. Our playroom is something that was high on our list and I love having a dedicated space for the kids and all their stuff, plus a big screen tv for family movie nights! Another thing we love is the view off our back porch. We never cared about a view before, but now that we have it it’s one of our favorite things. Another thing the whole family loves is the pool. I grew up with a pool and love that our kids will be able to as well. By the way, we had this pool safety net installed the same day we moved in and we highly recommend it!

pros and cons

Because I want to be completely honest though, there are some things I don’t love wholeheartedly. A bigger house means more spaces to clean. There is constantly a room to be cleaned or a space to be organized. Whereas before I could dedicate a couple hours and get the whole house shiny clean, that is definitely no longer the case. A bigger house is also much more expensive to heat and cool all year long. And any house project is much more expensive because new flooring means a lot of new flooring!

what we’ve done over the past three years:

• remodeled son’s room
• painted the main living spaces
• remodeled daughter’s room #1
• remodeled daughter’s room #2
• converted office to office/guest room
• installed a solar heater for the pool
• planted a garden
• remodeled laundry room
• converted planter bed to playground
• remodeled downstairs bathroom
• installed overhead lighting in playroom
• installed new floors
• changed out some light fixtures
• remodeled living room

some of our favorite rooms:

I feel like every time we complete a new project that becomes my new favorite area of the house. It just feels so good to cross another space off our to-do list! So truthfully, it’s hard to pick a room and claim that it’s my favorite, but here are a couple of our remodeled spaces that hold a special place in my heart.

Our son’s room was the first house project we took on and I still love what we did in here. His wood accent wall is so perfect for the space and adds so much warmth to the room. You can read all about his vintage comic book room remodel here.

The laundry room might be the smallest room in the house (other than our downstairs powder room) but it’s one of my favorites! As you can imagine with six kids I am constantly in the laundry room so I’m glad I made it such a bright and happy space to be in! You can see all the before and after shots in this blog post.

take a sneak peek:

Over the past several months we have done several house projects that I haven’t shared much about. Partially because they didn’t feel quite, 100% done with all the perfect touches. So here are just a couple of sneak peeks of some areas we haven’t shared yet!

Have you thought about buying a bigger house? Or a smaller house?